The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
1420.
Maj Gen Binns
described the method of support at that time in his evidence
to
the Inquiry:
“… the
concept was described as M2T, monitoring, mentoring and training. I
would
say it was
a big T. It was a medium‑sized M, monitoring, but we didn’t do a
lot
of mentoring
…
“So if I
start with the T, training, I think we had a very successful
training centre that
we had
built at Shaibah Log Base. We were able to take people from initial
training,
we were
able to supervise Iraqis training themselves. We were able to equip
them,
to deploy
them, to sustain them … we didn’t then mentor them when they
were
deployed on
operation, and that was the significant difference between the
way
that we
approached support and the way that the Americans approached
support
1421.
Mr Browne
visited Iraq from 29 October to 2 November.1302
He described
the visit,
in a letter
to Mr Brown, as “intense but stimulating and productive”,
observing that it had
been
“markedly the most encouraging of my seven visits to Basra”. He
commented:
“The
primary deficiency in the security apparatus remains the judicial
sector. I am
sceptical
about our ability to deliver an effective Iraqi Police Service when
there is
no
functioning framework of enforceable law within which they can
operate. This
needs our
urgent attention. It does not, in my view, need to mean the
deployment
of
significant additional resources to Iraq; I am attracted by the
idea of electronic
mentoring
of the Iraqi judiciary by international counterparts.”
1422.
The FCO, DFID,
the MOD and the Stabilisation Unit produced a UK Strategy
for
Security
and Justice Sector Reform (SJSR) in December.1303
Acknowledging
that it was
subject to
any Ministerial decisions in 2008 on the UK’s overall strategy in
Iraq, it listed
four areas
for development in 2008‑2009:
•
A presence
in both cities could help the UK influence central policy
initiatives by
feeding
intelligence from work on the ground.
•
The UK
could contribute strategic policing advice to the IPS and influence
US
thinking on
the IPS’s development needs.
•
The UK
could utilise its “significant experience in pursuing civil service
reform
in weak
states” to reform Iraq’s “weak” Government institutions, making
them
more
effective.
•
The UK
could encourage the EU and UN to put greater resources
into
co‑ordinating
Rule of Law donor engagement.
1301
Public
hearing, 15 January 2010, pages 16‑17.
1302
Letter
Browne to Brown, 2 November 2007, [untitled].
1303
Report FCO,
DFID, MOD and Stabilisation Unit, December 2007, ‘UK Strategy for
Security and Justice
Sector
Reform (SJSR) in Iraq 2008‑09’.
384